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FTP is 50 years old

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Re: FTP is 50 years old

#21

Post by tpmx »

goda90 wrote: post #3

What's the oldest protocol that's still regularly used?

Perhaps the oldest protocol for automated (in terms of encoding/decoding) text communication that's still being regularly used?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baudot_code#ITA2

> In 1924, the CCITT introduced the International Telegraph Alphabet No. 2 (ITA2) code[14] as an international standard, which was based on the Western Union code with some minor changes.

> ITA2 is still used in telecommunications devices for the deaf (TDD), Telex, and some amateur radio applications, such as radioteletype ("RTTY").

It's interesting that the fundamentals of this were invented in 1870s. Who needs semiconductors when you have gears and levers?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Émile_Baudot

Re: FTP is 50 years old

#22

Post by jandrese »

ajb wrote: post #6

From rfc801 (transition from NCP to TCP/IP) : "FTP: This is specified in RFC 765. It is very similar to the FTP used with the NCP. The primary differences are that in addition to the changes for Telnet, that the data channel is limited to 8-bit bytes so FTP features to use other transmission byte sizes are eliminated." So FTP is older than the standardisation of byte size :-)

Not so surprising when you consider it was developed in the era of 36 bit word machines.

Re: FTP is 50 years old

#23

Post by peter303 »

goda90 wrote: post #3

What's the oldest protocol that's still regularly used?

British naval signal and letter flags codified 1817.

Morse code from 1840s. Ham radio still uses it when signal took weak fir voice. Proficiency was required for a ham license until 2006.

Re: FTP is 50 years old

#26

Post by Jtsummers »

crazypython wrote: post #9
theflyinghorse wrote: post #7

The worst part is not that its 50 years old. The worst part is that some places still INSIST on using it. For instance I have to deal with FOTA and it's a pain.

Older technologies are more reliable and last longer, because they have survived the changes of time. That also means if you learn older technology (my rule of thumb is 15+– think Elixir, Lisp, Haskell, Python, Java, C++), your knowledge is unlikely to expire.

I think you mean Erlang there and not Elixir. Elixir itself is only 10 years old, Erlang is 35. That said, Elixir does seem to be pretty stable, I've not run into major issues when learning it with regard to dated material being "wrong" (either actually wrong with regard to the current language incarnation, incomplete like pre-`go mod` golang materials, or "off" from the current idiomatic use of the language).

Re: FTP is 50 years old

#27

Post by TwoBit »

spacemanmatt wrote: post #17
theflyinghorse wrote: post #7

The worst part is not that its 50 years old. The worst part is that some places still INSIST on using it. For instance I have to deal with FOTA and it's a pain.

I had a finance-industry client require we upload to their FTP server because they couldn't trust downloading the file over HTTPS from our server with a secure/unique URL.

Did they have any rationale for that?

Re: FTP is 50 years old

#28

Post by jswrenn »

ajb wrote: post #16
goda90 wrote: post #3

What's the oldest protocol that's still regularly used?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shibboleth

Ha, I was like "REALLY!?!?" before actually clicking the link. I was thinking of: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shibboleth_Single_Sign-on_arch...

...which is an unlikely contender for oldest protocol!

Re: FTP is 50 years old

#29

Post by layer8 »

I like the user-facing simplicity of FTP as a text-based interface for browsing and downloading/uploading files. No broken links, as the directory layout generally doesn’t change every other year, no eternal-beta web UI, diverse choice of powerful native clients. It’s unfortunate that the protocol itself didn’t held up so well.

Re: FTP is 50 years old

#30

Post by TwoBit »

crazypython wrote: post #9
theflyinghorse wrote: post #7

The worst part is not that its 50 years old. The worst part is that some places still INSIST on using it. For instance I have to deal with FOTA and it's a pain.

Older technologies are more reliable and last longer, because they have survived the changes of time. That also means if you learn older technology (my rule of thumb is 15+– think Elixir, Lisp, Haskell, Python, Java, C++), your knowledge is unlikely to expire.

FTP is not reliable. It has survived (though it's nearly dead) only due to entrenchment.
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